Getting Started on Energy Management

You have to start somewhere—but where? One place would be here, the first installment of a new series we are calling Energy Miser. It will appear about nine times this year and is intended to provide practical guidance on how to get started on energy management. Notice, I said energy management, not energy savings. You have to actively manage your energy use if you want to reduce it to the most efficient level of consumption. You can’t avoid using energy in a plastics plant. But you can avoid wasting it.

At the end of a shutdown purge, run the system empty before you cut the heats and go home…as opposed to leaving the barrel full of purging compound. The reason? It won’t hurt anything—the metal surfaces inside the machine will still be coated by a layer of purging material – and you’ll save time at startup when you don’t need to bring a full barrel of material up to temperature… Learn more

Resin Buying Pointer of the Month…
Here's the next in a series of Resin-Buying Pointers offered exclusively to subscribers of this e-newsletter by the experts at RTi:

Resin prices fell by record levels over the last five months of 2008. Did you get the maximum price reduction for you resin? Did you position your inventories correctly for the first quarter of 2009? If you didn’t take a position on your resin purchases in December, it’s still not too late. But time is running out—buy for February now and agree to increases only if they exist on February 1… Learn More

Mold Care Pointer of the Month…
Here's the next in a series of Mold Care Pointers offered exclusively to subscribers of this e-newsletter by Slide Products, a leading manufacturer of mold care products and mold releases:

Don’t buy a mold release based on the number of ounces listed on the can. Depending on the formulation, often the ounces reflect the how much propellant is in the can, and not how many applications you can expect to get from each can. The products’ active ingredients and effectiveness on your particular application are better yard sticks for determining value… Learn More

Infrared Crystallizer/Dryer Cuts energy costs by up to 65%...
while crystallizing/drying PET flake in one step in one hour.
www.novatec.com/IRD

New Technology Spotlight:

• Mold Better Parts At Lower Pressures
• PP Sheet Gains Cold Impact Strength
• New Forming Method Is ‘Sheetless’
• Flow Diverter Shuts Off Defective Cavities
• Larger Hot-Water and Oil Temperature Controllers
• Specialty Olefinic TPEs Get Food-Contact Approval
  

Is the worst behind us?

The fourth quarter of 2008 was a particularly dark and dreary time for U.S. manufacturing, as virtually every measure of economic and industrial activity from this time period exhibited an accelerating downtrend. Nowhere was this more evident than in the latest data from the plastics industry. Our Injection Molding Business Index plummeted 21% during the latest reporting month to a level not seen in over 10 years. The good news is that the worst of the panic is now over, and after a few months of consolidation, the data will begin to recover in the second half of the year... Learn More

Our Extrusion Business Index fared even worse, as it spiked down a jarring 27% in the latest reporting month. The two-year collapse of the residential construction sector is the major factor affecting the extrusion data. As is the case with demand for injection molded products, we expect that the market data for extruded products is now past the period of “accelerating declines.” The monthly declines will be increasingly less severe during the first half of 2009, and they will gradually change to increases during the second half of this year... Learn More

January Cover Story

More Economical IML

IML has been adopted by only a handful of North American molders, though they say their business has been brisk. Penetration of IML into injection molded food packaging is still no more than 5% here, though in Europe injection molding IML accounts for an estimated 85% to 95% of food packaging applications. But IML’s penetration in North America may get a boost from recent developments in flexible IML workcells using modular “adaptable automation” that allows molders to spread their hardware investment over multiple applications… Learn More

NovaDrier™ - Patented Membrane Dryer Saves Thousands/Year…
in energy compared to others & guarantees -40˚ dew point.
www.novatec.com/ND